A former teacher at William H. Farquhar Middle School has filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery County Board of Education and principal Joel Beidleman, alleging that she suffered discrimination and hostile work environment.
The suit from the teacher, identified as Jane Doe, comes on the heels of the school board releasing a heavily redacted version of an investigative report into allegations of sexual misconduct by Montgomery County Public Schools principal Joel Beidleman, after pressure from the County Council and the public. The Baltimore-based Jackson Lewis law firm was tapped by the school district to investigate Beidleman after a Washington Post investigation revealed there were at least 18 sexual harassment reports filed by school staff against the principal.
Beidleman most recently served as principal of Farquhar Middle School in Olney and was slated to be promoted over the summer to principal of Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville until the Post began inquiries.
A 20-page-long complaint details a myriad of incidents in which Beidleman allegedly sexually harassed her at school and outside of school, intimidated her, made “uncomfortable” and embarrassing comments and put her job in jeopardy as retaliation for ignoring his sexual advances.
In one of the alleged incidents, Beidleman commented to the plaintiff, “I love those tight-ass black pants,” and “I want you to slap my bologna.”
In another incident, Beidelman allegedly denied her request to cancel a meeting to pick up her daughter from school after the girl fainted and hit her head with, “you will be letting everyone down.”
Additionally, the complaint detailed how MCPS and the Board of Education had allegedly worked to “cover up” Beidleman’s history of misconduct leading up to his promotion, including the breaching of confidentiality protocols by an investigator for MCPS’ Department of Compliance and Investigations, who was recently moved to “special assignment position” in the Office of Human Resources and Development, the Post reported.
A spokesperson for MCPS did not immediately respond to for comment. It was not immediately clear who Beidleman’s attorney is, and MoCo360 was unable to reach Beidleman on Thursday afternoon. Previously, he has denied allegations to the Post.
The plaintiff is seeking damages exceeding $75,000 and is being represented by Rockville-based attorney Jerry W. Hyatt of Jerry Hyatt Law. The lawsuit was filed Monday, according to Maryland Case Search.
Jane Doe’s lawsuit may not be the last relating to the Beidleman allegations. The president of the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the local teachers union, released an email stating that the union has “enlisted the help of a private law firm that represents employees who have complaints about abuse and harassment,” the website Montgomery Perspective reported on Thursday.
Martin’s email explained that a private law firm, McGillivary Steele Elkin, LLP – which specializes in representing public sector employees in labor and employment issues, according to memo it sent to Martin – is looking for MCPS employees and MCEA members from Farquhar Middle School and other worksites in the school system who may have faced abuse and harassment to sign on to a class-action lawsuit.
The private law firm reached out to Martin in a memo on Aug. 18 (the memo was included in the email to MCEA members) to lend their support to victims of misconduct and harassment at MCPS at no cost to the employee.
MCEA did not immediately respond Thursday to MoCo360’s email and phone call requests for comment.
The memo explained that under federal law and Maryland state law, victims can individually recover up to $300,000 against the County and “punitive damages against the harasser.” In addition, Montgomery County Code provides damages for sexual harassment and retaliation of up to $500,000, against the perpetrators, not the County, according to the memo. Additionally, state and county laws also provide for the recovery of attorney’s fees, per the letter.
Gregory McGillivary, an attorney at the law firm, wrote in the memo that the firm saw the Post’s investigation into Beidleman’s “egregious misconduct and harassment” at MCPS and wanted to inform teachers that they have legal recourse and can recover damages for the harassment and retaliation they faced.
McGillivary also listed a handful of other law firms in the Washington, D.C. area that could handle their cases.
“Our firm and others handle these cases at no cost to the employee – we handle the case of a contingency fee basis and seek to recover hourly fees from the employer,” the memo stated.
Gregory McGillivary did not immediately respond Thursday to MoCo360’s request for comment.
Currently, the Montgomery County Office of the Inspector General has launched an independent investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct by Beidleman. They office is conducting two probes into MCPS’ process for “receiving and responding to allegations of misconduct” against employees, and the specific allegations made against Beidleman that were received by MCPS and other allegations that were not investigated.
Before the Inspector General launched her investigation, the school district had hired Jackson Lewis to investigate the allegations against Beidleman. After pressure from the public and local elected officials, the board released the heavily redacted version of Jackson Lewis’ report earlier this month.
The report revealed that there were more than 25 allegations of sexual misconduct against principal Joel Beidleman, an MCPS central office employee had “improperly altered” the timeline of MCPS internal investigation of Beidleman and that anonymous complaints from 2021 to 2023 were not formally investigated, per the report.
In addition to the release of the report, MCPS central office saw a handful of personnel changes: a former deputy superintendent is no longer employed by the district, and two employees at the Office of School Support and Well-Being were put on administrative leave.